Fat Boy & HOG :D

I shall blog in reverse chronological order this time :D Haha.

 My very own restaurant!! :D Standard ah...JB! LOLS! :D

Guess where this is?? :D It's a burger place which serves awesome burgers.......FAT BOY! :D Melvin has been wanting to bring me there for like 3-4months already...Finally, our plans coincided and he made his recommendation a reality. Haha. On site was Matthew, Myself, Daryl, Jon Wee & Melvin :D

I bought the Elvis burger for $11...It comes with burgers, fries & salad (lettuce, cucumber & a slice of tomato) It was awesome...The burger bun was some chocolate bun dotted with peanuts and the patty? Oh...the patty is really interesting and GOOD :D It was a beef patty topped with fried bananas and finished with peanut butter!! WHOAWWSSS!!

I should've taken a photo of it man...It was awesome! Indeed awesome! Man is my vocabulary limited now...Army reduces you to a mere piece of existential junk man...haha.

My wall :D

Being rather interested in finding out who the other "Jonavan" is, I asked restaurant's owner "Who's Jonavan?"

His reply "Oh...It's not a 'J' it's a 'D' Donavan's the designer of our restaurant. :)"

And I thought there was another miracle like me existing in this world...HAHAHA! :)

Well to me, the letter 'd' sure looks 'j' to me :D HAHA! So I continued snapping a few more photos :D This time, with my dearest Daryl who just came back from Thailand!! :D He's gonna be higher rank than me soon man...diaosS...HAHA!

 

 OCT Daryl & 3SG Jonavan :) Haha!

Standard ah! Pose by me :D LOLS!

After our hearty meal @ Fat Boy, the commanders headed down to Hougang for a game of pool while the man went home to emo...HAHA! Jkjk! :P And this army-fied statement wasn't meant to predict melvin's future rank that he'll hold...haha! :D

And before our Bethelite gathering at Fat Boy, I came from a Heart of God-ian (HOG) service at Paya Lebar! :D

Lemme share with you my heart-warming, tear-jerking, spirit-lifting, soul-inspiring experience in that particular service.

One thing the HOG-ians really believe in is their services. They put in hours of rehearsals (not just the worship team) before they present it on stage for service. The worship team puts in at least 16hours of rehearsal time before they play for that Saturday & Sunday. They go back from Tuesdays to Saturdays for at least 3 hours per day to rehearse. That explains their superb band dynamics & tightness in their song presentation.

Beyond the musical aspect, there's the spiritual aspect too. People there believe that God is real when they worship. Unlike Bethel. They dance, lift their hands, sing, etc...you can feel the people engaging...and this creates synergy which inspires everyone around them to worship. In Bethel, people are looking around, afraid to sing too loud, skpetical about the song lyrics, worshipping God by standing absolutely still (which I'm not against...but that can't happen every week!) etc...

If you love God and can't show it in the most basic expression of worship - congregational singing of spiritual songs - then I don't think that you actually do. Or at least, love Him enough to tell Him through words that have tunes attached. After all, He deserves our all. Unless you tell me you have a regular lifestyle of worship that doesn't include song singing, but dancing & you dance regularly as a form of worship to God...then I'm impressed, but not convinced. Because expressing worship through written songs are the easiest form of worship...Most of us are just plain lazy or disengaged because we think God is not real or not worthy of our praises.

The main thing about yesterday's service was their testimonies. HOG church is now going through a month of giving...where people pledge $$ to the church. If you think people get put off by sermons on giving, you're right. That's why Ps How made the sermon the people - the people's testimonies.

They got 3 people up to share their life testimonies on how Heart of God has changed their lives...Upon hearing the 2nd testimony, tears already begin to well up in my eyes. You can see how God real is in their lives and you can feel what church is and know what the church is for.

The story that touched me the most was this gangster's testimony...They showed his tattoo that occupied his whole back and all...and he shared on his heinous lifestyle of stealing, fighting, trying to find acceptance in gangs, his violent father, etc...His friend from HOG then brought him to service and his cell leader really made him feel loved.

They (his cell group a.k.a. connect group) bought him a pair of sneakers which he really wanted. Here's a paraphrase of what he said "When they gave me a pair of sneakers, I broke down and cried. I thought to myself 'How can someone love me enough to buy me this? Not even my dad'll do that'" He then joined the usher ministry and he had no formal shoes so he had to borrow in order to serve. The head usher upon finding out, bought him a pair of formal shoes the next service and presented it to him...He broke into tears again as he felt the sincere love & concern shown to him...this time not by his direct superior (his CL) but by his ministry head. Now, that's pastoral leadership.

He was so touched & loved that this love began to overflow to his friends. He then shared on how he brought another friend to Christ...another Ah beng...His gangmate if I'm not wrong...He then invited his friend up to share his testimony next to him...Whoa. Seeing these two long spike-haired, punky spectacled, skinny jeans-ed 16 year old boys share so confidently on stage is simply amazing. 

His friend then shared on how God used him to bring his family to Christ...and his siblings were also seated right there in the service! Haha. They then showed their results...from being the last few in class to being the 1st & the 5th in class...They also received some "model student of the year" award from their school man!!

I don't know about you...but as I heard their words peppered with raw conviction and gratitude it just brings back up a familiar longing in my soul...a longing that says "THIS IS CHURCH! THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO LIVE FOR!! THIS IS WHAT I'D GIVE MY LIFE FORR!!!" Something was stirred deep within my heart again to see God's church impact people's lives this way.

In Bethel, I just get pissed off with their obsession with events, plans and mission statements while all the while they're screwing up their execution & oblivious to the irrelevance of the things they are doing and want to do and all. Gosh. How oblivious some people can be. BUT, God still placed them there for a purpose. I don't know what purpose...but I'm not there to find out...My faith's getting killed by these good-intentioned, but lack-the-know-how, not-fit-for-the-job pastors.

Good intentions? Willingness to serve? Got the heart? All these are good. I'm not discrediting that! But they must be placed in the right places and not in places where they think they should be in. That's Bethel for you.

Anyway, after the testimony sharing Ps How summed it up like how I would've "I don't have to be a pastor. I have my own business. I can do other things. But it's people like these that make me want to continue serving. It's stories like these that make my serving worthwhile. It's because of you guys that I can continue doing what I am doing for the rest of my life."

Me too...To see changed lives, I'd give my life for that. You can smell hope there. You can feel the reality of the vision God has gave Ps How. You can feel the tangible sense of God's presence there. Bringing that experience out of the church's four walls is the hardest task. But they've done it. And they've grown to a predominantly youth congregation of 1200 people!

And the people there give crazily. The 3rd person's testimony was a girl who pledged $10,000 to the church's building fund when she only earns a tenth of that amount a month! But she had faith. And she sacrificed so much to give to God. Like what Ps How says "Sacrifice luxury, not living!" She didn't compromise her standard of living to give to God...she sacrificed her cab rides, walked home, eat cheap, etc...What's her motivation to give so much to Heart of God (HOG) church?

It's spelt V-I-S-I-O-N. She can see what her giving will result in...more lives changed...more families restored...more gangsters becoming role models...etc...They didn't talk too much about "giving for the church building". The emphasis wasn't on the building...it was in what was happening in the building.

I guess that's what a lot of churches miss out today. So sad how we can lose the essence of what the Church was called to be...Reference the early church in Acts & you get an embarrassing picture of insecure pastors playing politics and masquerading their carnal earthly desire to build a big building and get famous and all...If this is not so, then why is the Church impotent today?? It's the hope of the world!! It's the refuge for the oppressed!!

But I still strongly believe God is gonna use His Church in the last days powerfully. It's just a matter of which church gets hit by revival and which church ushers it in.

So yup, I've made up my mind to attend Heart of God church. I will tithe there, serve there and hopefully find my soulmate there. HAHA! But somehow, there's something in my heart for Bethel that is unabated. I know God wants me to do something there...I know it...But for now, I will need to revive myself in another church and see what God says...

Like Regina told me "When the time comes for you to go back, you'll know it."

Like what Cai Jie told me "You need to move on, move out to see what God is doing outside of what we see every Sunday. If you're too disillusioned by the church, move on."

Like what Ps Daniel Teu told me "Jon, this church is too slow for you...If you can't live with that, you've gotta move on."

I may wanna furnish that list of people whom I allow to speak into my life. There's still like Abigail, Meryl, Anna & Jeremy whom I've yet to hear from. We'll see :)